Originally Posted by Ezekiel
Wars are started with economic motivation. There are profiteers, as numan pointed out, and there are motives of economic hegemony on the part of the aggressors.

Whether or not the goal of economic hegemony is reached depends on the outcome of the war. Those who initiate it do not know the outcome beforehand.
Zeke
Of course you are correct that it is impossible to predict the outcome of wars.... and there are lots of reasons for this.

I observe that people can go through years of psychological therapy to try to untangle the complicated web that results in a particular problem. And I can say for my self that I seldom have a clearly defined and unitary motivation for my decisions.

SO given that the decision process of any individual is very complex, and given that the decision process of multiple people must also be very complex... and to a large degree opaque. And certainly, one must allow for the fact that other cutures will have motivation structures that are totally unfamiliar to us... and necessarily even further obscured.

SO, what puzzles me is how you can see uncertainty in one set of complexity... and yet with laser like precision see through even greater complexity and arrive at certainty as to the single unifying motivation.


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So, given those two aspects, there always seems to be some economic benefit, whether it be to the profiteers or whether it be through economic hegemony, or both.

Again you are correct, but there does seem to be a hole in your logic. Let me illustrate.

Many people get married. the choice of partner will likely have an economic impact on their future. But it does not seem a fair conclusion to say that the choice of marriage partner is almost entirely driven by economic factors.

"It's not a lie if you believe it." -- George Costanza
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. --Bertrand Russel